The Chinese Orange Mystery

“Sure. It’s well oiled and doesn’t make any noise at all when you shove it over. No wonder Osborne didn’t hear it goin’ into place. He’s a kind of studious guy, anyway, an’ he says he was workin’ on Kirk’s stamps, so he didn’t hear anything.”

“You’d think,” snapped the Inspector, “he’d hear all this furniture being shoved around!”

“Pshaw, dad,” said Ellery wearily, “you know Osborne’s type as well as I do. If he was occupied doing something during the murder-period, you may be sure he was deaf, dumb, and blind. He’s as loyal to Kirk as a woman in love, and he’s fanatically devoted to Kirk’s interests.”

“All right, all right, so it’s this hall-door,” said the Inspector. “What did you find out about the emergency stairway, Thomas?”

“It’s at the end of the hall outside here, Inspector. ‘Way down the corridor across from the rear of the Kirk apartment. Fact, the door to the stairway is right opposite old Kirk’s bedroom. Anybody could have come up or down the stairs, popped into the hall, sneaked down past the Kirk rooms to this door, pulled the job, and made a getaway the same way.”

“And Mrs. Shane near the elevators couldn’t see any one in that case, hey? The cross-hall’s out of her line of vision except where the two meet?”

“That’s right. She said anyway she didn’t see anybody in this part of the floor after the dead guy came up, except that nurse, that Miss Temple¯” the Sergeant consulted a notebook, “a woman by the name of Irene Llewes¯both guests here¯and a Mr. Glenn Macgowan, Mr. Kirk’s pal. They all went into the office, chinned with Osborne, and went out again. Macgowan took the elevator down. The Llewes woman went off toward the Kirk apartment; she didn’t go in, though, so she probably took those stairs down¯her rooms are on the floor below. Miss Temple went back to the Kirk apartment¯she’s a guest of Kirk’s. So did the nurse. Seems this Miss Diversey’d stopped in this anteroom before she went to the office; said it was neat as a pin. Well, that’s all, Inspector. Nobody else. So it looks like whoever pulled this job used those stairs, and never even showed up around the corner so this Shane dame could see him.”

“That is,” said the Inspector nastily, “if whoever pulled this job doesn’t belong in the Kirk apartment.”

“That’s the way I figure it, too,” rumbled the Sergeant with a scowl. “And I figure the killer bolted that office-door to keep Osborne or whoever else might be in there from interruptin’ him while he was doin’ his hocus-pocus with the furniture in here.”

“And locked the corridor-door, too, I s’pose, for the same reason,” nodded the Inspector, “although we’ll probably never know. When he was through he went out that way, leaving the door closed but unlocked, the way it was found. Didn’t bother to unbolt that door to the office. Maybe he figured it would give him more time for the getaway. Well!” He sighed. “Anything . else?”

Ellery puffed at his sixth cigaret. He was listening very intently for all his air of abstraction. His eyes he kept riveted on the kneeling figure of Dr. Prouty, the Assistant Medical Examiner, busy with the dead man.

“Yes, sir. Osborne and Mrs. Shane told me about the others comin’ in and out. Mrs. Shane also backed up Osborne when he said that from the time the little guy came until Mr. Kirk and Mr. Queen arrived he¯that’s Ozzie, they call him¯didn’t leave the office even once. So¯”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Ellery. “It’s quite obvious that the murderer had to come in and leave the anteroom through that corridor-door.” There was something impatient in his tone. “Now how about the man’s identity, Velie? Surely there’s something there? I scarcely touched the man’s clothing.”

“Ha,” said Sergeant Velie in his volcanic basso, “there’s something else that’s screwy about this crime, Mr. Queen.”

“Eh?” said Ellery, staring.

“What’s this, Thomas?”

“No identification.”

“WhatI”

“Nothin’ in the pockets, Mr. Queen. Not a scrap of anything. Just some lint, like the stuff that always accumulates in a guy’s pockets. They’re goin’ to analyze but it won’t do ‘em any good. No tobacco spillings¯he evidently didn’t smoke. Just nothin’.”

“Rifled, by George,” murmured Ellery. “Odd! I wonder¯”

“I’m going to have a look at those duds,” growled the Inspector, lunging forward. “The labels¯”

Sergeant Velie’s girder-like arm stopped him. “No use, Inspector,” he said sympathetically. “There ain’t any.” The Inspector glared. “I’m tellin’ you! They’ve all been cut out.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

Ellery said thoughtfully: “Odder still. I’m beginning to feel a vast respect for our friend the basher. Thorough, isn’t he? Velie, do you mean to say that there’s nothing, nothing at all? How about the underwear?”

“Plain two-piece. No lead there. Labels gone.”

“Shoes?”

“All the numbers are scratched out and inked in with some of that indelible ink from the desk there¯India ink.”

“Amazing! Collar?”